Toll road employees getting free ride

(6/22/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- We'll all soon have to pay more to ride the toll roads in our area, but our investigation found that some people don't have to pay at all. It's a free ride for thousands of county employees. The very people who decided to increase the toll rates don't have to pay a penny themselves.

The county has backed off the massive toll hike because of public outrage and now, they're likely to hear another chorus of criticism after what we discovered.

Go the headquarters of the Harris County Toll Road Authority. Check out the employee parking lot. It looks like everyone has EZ tags, so they must know how the rest of you felt when the county commissioners decided to double some of the tolls and then changed their minds.

Maybe not.

You see, they've gotten to commute free for the last fifteen years. Did you know that?

"Is that fair to rest of us folks who pay for it?" we asked Toll Road Manager Peter Key.

"That's a good question," he answered.

So while some of you spend hundreds of dollars a year commuting, everyone who works at the Harris County Toll Road Authority gets a freebee.

"Is this a perk?" we asked.

"I would consider it a benefit," said Key.

There are about 900 toll road employees. How much has this benefit cost? No one seems to know. How many times have employees used the toll road for other personal trips? No one seems to know.

"To my knowledge, we have not undertaken random audit of these tags," said Key.

Some employees do reimburse for their personal trips. But were now doing what the toll road authority never bothered to do. We're examining all the records of all trips with these freebee EZ tags

"This doesn't seem like rocket science," we said. "Why are we giving people free passage?"

"That's a good question," Key answered. "It's under review right now. I need advice to know what to do with this policy."

In all, the list Eyewitness News got shows more than 5,500 free tags have been handed out, some to the very commissioners who suggested we should take another way home to reduce congestion.
(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

Get more News »

• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•